Grandview, Mo.
October 16, 1911
Dear Bessie:
You see I am writing that note with very exact promptitude. How do you like that for stilted English?
I have forgotten whether I told you I enjoyed the dinner yesterday, but I most certainly did. It was so good that I did not want any lunch until I arrived home at 1:15 p.m. I don't ever remember of having enjoyed myself more than I did yesterday and Saturday. I hope you'll let me repeat the offense at no very distant date.
I am getting ready for South Dakota today. I rather think I'd better hunt up my overcoat this morning. I saw my Colgan cousin yesterday after I left Independence and he is going with me. We'll have enough to play a good game of cards anyway tomorrow night on the train.
I bet there'll be more bohunks and "Rooshans" up there than white men. I think it is a disgrace to the country for those fellows to be in it. If they had only stopped immigration about twenty or thirty years ago, the good Americans could all have had plenty of land and we'd have been an agricultural country forever. You know as long as a country is one of that kind, people are more independent and make better citizens. When it is made up of factories and large cities it soon becomes depressed and makes classes among people. Every farmer thinks he's as good as the President or perhaps a little bit better. When a man works for a boss, he is soon impressed with how small he is and how great the boss is until he actually believes it is so and that money makes the world go round. It does I guess in very large cities.
Say this letter is as dry as a Baptist preacher's sermon. Just skip it and write me one-that is what I am after. We have a preacher out here now who never did see a grammar: He talks South Missouri in the pulpit. It makes a great impression on his hearers, I tell you.
Please consider coming out on the last Sunday in this month if the weather permits and let me know if you can. Mamma said it would be all right, the more the merrier. But any Sunday that suits you will be all right with us. Only let me know in time so I can plow and harry the tennis court.
Now you owe me a letter.
Most sincerely,
Harry